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Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:10 am +0000
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admin wrote:
.. it is never a good idea to take any of The Urantia Book out of context. This is a book... it has a page 1 and a last page. It is intended by the revelators to be read in sequence and for the full book to be read in order to be understood... it's not a pick and choose, piecemeal compilation and I would never recommend to any reader that they shouldn't read all of it.
Hi Larry,

Yes, I agree. It’s necessary to read the whole book to (fully) understand it. Personally I’ve read most of it by now. But when I started reading The Urantia Book, I was very much fascinated by the elaborate concepts and teachings which appeared to confirm my own theories of oneness and God, which were mostly based on modern scientific insights and ancient Eastern Vedic philosophies, and I just skipped through the book back and forth, though I read the Foreword first. :)

The following months, I learned a lot from discussions with other Truthbook members. These discussions frequently forced me to look up arguments in TUB to support my own statements. And most of the time I found them; I even grew to more or less expect them to be in the book. I misinterpreted TUB a few times due to my own error, and was corrected by long time readers, for which I thank them. However, my current understanding of TUB is still much the same as when I had read only fragmentary passages of it. And in fact, I didn’t encounter anything in TUB that can be interpreted in radically different ways; either I understood a statement or I didn’t, in which case I searched the book for more information, which I always found.

Although I most certainly don’t "know" absolute Truth, I think it’s possible that Mel (Julian), like myself, has some personal religious philosophy and/or experience which he "knows" must be true. And we share a Christian background and knowledge of Eastern religious philosophies. So, in my post I meant to suggest that in his specific case it might be possible to grasp the essence of TUB without reading it sequentially from start to finish. After all, he has only 6 months for it.. :) But, again, you are right, this can never be a good advice to any reader.

Greetings, Bart
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Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:51 pm +0000
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I found this a curious statement, Bart:
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The Urantia Book claims to contain revealed knowledge of absolute Truth which cannot be obtained in any other way. But this is apparent mostly to those who already know the Truth. As such, The Urantia Book mainly confirms personal religious/spiritual experience; it doesn’t solve the fundamental Mystery of human existence.


Please consider this:

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"Mortal consciousness proceeds from the fact, to the meaning, and then to the value. Creator consciousness proceeds from the thought-value, through the word-meaning, to the fact of action. Always must God act to break the deadlock of the unqualified unity inherent in existential infinity. Always must Deity provide the pattern universe, the perfect personalities, the original truth, beauty, and goodness for which all subdeity creations strive. Always must God first find man that man may later find God. Always must there be a Universal Father before there can ever be universal sonship and consequent universal brotherhood."


The book does provide a very clear answer to the riddle of human existance. It explains exponentially far more then all other writings combined, and supersedes them with concepts never before entertained on this planet. The Urantia Book starts with the Unqualified Absolute as the Infinite One and works it's way down to us. If that does not for you answer the questions for How, Who, When, and, most defnitely, Why, then read the whole book from cover to cover, then again, and then get back to me. The fundamental reason for our existence is explained in this the Fifth Epochal Revelation, and can stand on it's own merit; Christians be damned!
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Bart wrote:
Although I most certainly don’t "know" absolute Truth, I think it’s possible that Mel (Julian), like myself, has some personal religious philosophy and/or experience which he "knows" must be true. And we share a Christian background and knowledge of Eastern religious philosophies. So, in my post I meant to suggest that in his specific case it might be possible to grasp the essence of TUB without reading it sequentially from start to finish.
Greetings, Bart

Spot on. Largely because of my inability to absorb large amounts of text (which I discovered when I graduated from high school and made three failed attempts to make any progress at university because of the large amount of reading required) I have always looked for essences rather than details. I do not understand this inability to absorb large amounts of text, but it is a reality for me. So I know a small amount about a lot of religious/esoteric subjects but have studied none in detail. A lot of my ideas/knowledge have come from browsing in the religious section of second-hand bookstores -- reading a paragraph here and a paragraph there. I have read very widely but never found the need to go into any area in great detail.

In my experience, most people at some stage find a religious philosophy that meets their individual needs, and focus fully on that. I remain open minded and do not have any dogmas which I consider to be absolute truth. I regard my ideas as working hypotheses, which may be subject to change according to new knowledge or experience. I do of course have a pretty fair knowledge and understanding of Christianity through posting to various Christian websites over a period of more than five years.

I have acquired through reading (short books), lectures, discussions, conversations but most of all through observing and experiencing life, a philosophy that works for me. It is quite simple actually.

Because I have the indexed version of UB, I can go straight to the topics that interest me most. Already I have clarified some topics about which my understanding from my other reading was quite vague.
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I hope you'll find Truthbook's search feature helpful also, Mel...

http://www.truthbook.com/search/UBParag ... chForm.cfm

MaryJo
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maryjo606 wrote:
I hope you'll find Truthbook's search feature helpful also, Mel...

http://www.truthbook.com/search/UBParag ... chForm.cfm

MaryJo

Hi maryjo. Thanks for the tip. I have already used the search feature a number of times. Now that I have uploaded the synopsis of Urantia to my website, I will add hyperlinks as well.
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Bart wrote:
Hi Chris.
Moreover, "certain wise comments and advices" suggest that the general public may not be ready for it yet and that we must be patient. "Overrapid growth would be suicidal" ..
Quote:
THE TIMING OF THE URANTIA BOOK


I tend to agree with that assessment. I post to other forums on which the subject of religion frequently comes up, and the conversations that develop quite strongly indicate that the general public is not at all ready for the Urantia Book. As much as I would like to share it with others on those forums it's quite obvious that fundamentalist Christians there would immediately and aggressively denounce me and it, and I have already had that experience on one forum a couple years ago for mentioning that Jesus was not the Eternal Son. I was immediately attacked as a blasphemer.

Since I found the UB 28 years ago I've learned to be careful who I talk to about it. While living in Alabama I used to read it on my lunch breaks at work, and others seeing it asked me what it was. When I told them it was a religious book they immediately distanced it and me, because it was not the Bible, and had to be the work of Satan.

There are just too many people out there with hard-wired fundamentalist beliefs that they are eager to fight for, as well as secular skeptics eager to discredit anything of the kind, and, of course, there are the atheists. My experiences online in discussions of religion have shown me that it's best never to so much as mention the UB, as someone in the forum will immediately google it and find anything negative they can about it, such as others calling it a cult, and otherwise seek to discredit it without ever having opened it and read a single page.

On a forum yesterday a certain fundamentalist Christian was asked by another poster where Cain got his wife, to which he responded that Cain had married his sister, which of course is not true, but he had to posit that because had there been people living in the land of Nod his position that Adam and Eve were the first human beings could not be supported.

Of course the Bible does not tell us anything about Cain's wife, her name or where Cain met her, but this guy had to take that position unsupported by the Bible in order to shore up his dogma, and when others challenged him on it he got pretty hostile.

So I find that it's not a friendly or receptive environment out there for the UB. I wish it were otherwise.
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The revelation teaches us to approach cosmic reality via facts, meanings and values. In order to achieve such three dimensional understanding, large amount of TUB text reading is necessary. Mathematical discrimination, judicial discrimination and reverential and worshipful discrimination should work together to present the true picture of FER.

It is easy for a work of man to have a point. It is not necessary to go through much of the work in order to get the point. The reason is the point is a point, not three dimensional cosmic reality. It is easy to grasp. It is either some facts, or some meanings or some values. But rarely, there is a piece of work presented coordinately of facts, meanings and values. We are not used to read with cosmic consciousness. Our thinking are often favored towards facts, or meanings or values uncoordinated.

To get to the point: three makes cosmic reality and the fact of reading enough text of TUB is necessary in order to grasp facts, meanings, and values of FER coordinately. It is like learning a new language, the necessity of having initial accumulation of vocabularies. This accumulation requires a person to read the necessary amount of TUB. It is a language of cosmic thinking, not fractured mortal imaginations.

Incidentally, TUB is not FER which includes spiritual pressure from above. TUB is a part of FER.

It is very difficult to introduce three dimensional thinking to an average person unless he is spiritually hungry. There is no training of cosmic thinking in our society. Perhaps, we should introduce TUB as a tool for learning cosmic thinking, or a revelation from higher beings who think cosmically. Most of us think in two dimensions. It is hard for us to change our material thinking habits. Man has to satisfy his stomach first before he starts thinking about the way he thinks. The reason TUB is so slow in distribution is due to the fact most people have no time or do not make time to think. Deep thinking is not promoted in society.

The social development of Urantia society is very confused. All strata of social developments coexist. TUB was introduced to us because there are some thinkers in the higher stratum of social development. With the help of TUB and the presence of angels, these deep thinkers will influence our society. It is the way they think, not the points they present in their works that will cause human society to change.

Jesus was an original thinker. He thought in original ways; therefore, he made original points. Learning the ways to think like the original thinkers is much superior than getting his original points. It seems necessary to get enough points (large amount of text reading) in order to get close to the way.
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153:3:5 You cannot compel men to love the truth.
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